Power is one
thing. The problem of how to administer it is another.1  Douglas MacArthur

On 9 April 2003, jubilant crowds and US troops toppled the statue of
Saddam Hussein in central Baghdad and drew down the curtain on the major combat phase of
Operation Iraqi Freedom. Within hours of the liberation of Baghdad, amid spreading
disorder and growing expectations, debate began over the reconstruction challenges ahead. Criticism and frustration with the chaos
on the ground intensified over the apparent failure of the United States to plan
adequately for the
restoration of political and economic order once major combat operations had ended.

The root of
Washingtons failure to anticipate the political disorder in Iraq rests precisely in
the characterization of these challenges as postwar problems, a
characterization used by virtually all analysts inside and outside of government. The Iraq
situation is only the most recent example of the reluctance of civilian and military
leaders, as well as most outside experts, to consider the establishment of political and
economic order as a part of war itself. The point is not academic. It is central to
any effective reconstruction strategy in future wars and has profound implications for the
militarys planning, command arrangements, and implementation of current and future
governance operations.2

Military and
political leaders need to distinguish between governance operations, which are a core
element of all wars, and activities such as peace operations and peacekeeping that may
occur independently of war. Labeling political and economic reconstruction as a postwar
problem muddles the fact that central to strategic victory in all wars fought by the
United States has been the

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creation of a
favorable political order, a process overseen and administered by US military
forcesusually the Army. The United States entered virtually all of its wars with the
assumption that the government of the opposing regime would change or that the political
situation would shift to favor US interests. During the Spanish-American War, we sought to
change the governments of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and succeeded. During the Civil War,
Washington was determined to change the way the South was governed. In Panama in 1989, the
United States ousted Manuel Noriega, and the war did not end until the regime against
which US forces had fought was out of power and political stability had resumed. In
virtually all contingencies, political leaders in Washington conceded that only US
military forces were up to the task of overseeing and implementing this final aspect of
war. Arguably, the 2003 war in Iraq is rooted in the most prominent recent case where the
political order did not changethe 1991 Gulf War. Some top Defense Department leaders
have called the 2003 war a logical conclusion to the 1991 campaign.

President
Bushs early concerns, which emerged during his presidential campaign, about the
involvement of US military forces in nation-building and peace operations stemmed from his
desire to avoid overextending American resources and commitments.3 A clear distinction between governance operations that
are integral to war and the myriad of missions referred to in the peace operations
discourse would be hugely beneficial. Such a distinction would allow US defense planners
to focus on the political and economic reconstruction that is a part of war, while
relegating humanitarian and nation-building missions to other organizations. Moreover,
equating the governance tasks that occur in all wars with the broader missions associated
with peace operations and humanitarian assistance reinforces the tendency to avoid
planning for governance operations in tandem with planning for combat operations. The
essential point is this: Combat operations and governance operations are both integral to
war and occur in tandem. US soldiers in Iraq today are wondering why, if the war is
supposed to be over, we are still being shot at.4 They remain
in Iraq because the war there is not over. The war in Iraq will not be over until a
legitimate government is in place and until, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
has emphasized, the Iraqi people no longer live in fear.

Furthermore, it
often has not been specialized civil affairs personnel who have conducted governance
operations, but tactical combat personnel in the

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theater. Before
World War II, in fact, specialized civil affairs units did not exist. Even after the
creation of these units, the reconstruction tasks in the theater were almost always more
than they could handle alone. Thus tactical troops worked side-by-side with more
specialized civil affairs officers to restructure corrupt police ministries, organize for
local elections, and ensure that new government officials were, in fact, new. The civil
affairs community that emerged after World War II did not succeed in integrating these
tasks into the Armys conception of war. The post-World War II reservists worked hard
to convince the active Army to recognize the value of civil affairs-related missions.
However, by emphasizing the specialness of civil affairs tasks and making
arguments about the distinct, specialized skills required for civil affairs missions,
their approach actually strengthened the prevailing view of governance operations as
separate and distinct from conventional warfare. In making the case for their own
specialties, civil affairs advocates tended to ignore that in many previous wars, tactical
combat forces performed reasonably well in implementing key aspects of political and
economic reconstruction. Furthermore, except for one active-duty brigade, all of the
Armys civil affairs units ended up in the reserve component, reinforcing the
separation from the active Armys focus on combat operations and setting governance
operations apart from the professional heart of the military.

US Army officers
have directly supervised the creation of new governments in many defeated states. They
faced remarkably similar governance challenges in all of these contingencies. These
include the well-known success stories of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II, as
well as cases that garner less attention, such as the Mexican War in the 1840s,
reconstruction at the close of the Civil War, and Puerto Rico and Cuba during the
Spanish-American War. Interventions that included governance operations took place during
the Cold War period, too: the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1986, and Panama in
1989. Since the 1800s, in over 13 instances, Army personnel under the theater
commanders operational control supervised and implemented political and economic
reconstruction.5 In virtually all of the Armys major
contingencies, Army personnel remained on the ground overseeing the political transitions
that were essential to the consolidation of victory. Furthermore, the continued presence
of Army troops in several casesGermany and Japan following World War II, South Korea
after the Korean Wartransformed the geostrategic landscape.

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Yet due to a host of reasons, most Army
and civilian officials have failed to absorb the historical lesson that reconstruction is
an integral part of war.

Governance
Operations as Strange and Abhorrent

US civilian leaders
always have been reluctant to give the military control over governance tasks, which are
fundamentally political in nature. The militarys conduct of governance operations
seemed to challenge the principle of civilian control over the military, an ideal
fundamental to the creation of a standing American army. Americas founding fathers
were determined to subordinate military to civil power and, as such, were careful to
create the first standing army in a manner that prevented the acquisition of too much
power by one organized group. Allowing the military to develop a capacity to govern could
endanger civilian control of the military if these skills were, in turn, used at home.

Civilian discomfort
with entrusting the Army with governance tasks persisted through all of Americas
wars. During the Reconstruction phase of the Civil War, President Johnson expressed deep
concern over the Armys role in the political rehabilitation of the South, fearing
that such power was in palpable conflict with the Constitution and a formula
for absolute despotism.6
As the Army began the reconstruction of Cuba during the Spanish-American War, President
McKinley reassured the public that military government was being established for
non-military purposes. In the early years of World War II, President Roosevelt
and many of his advisors believed that military government was . . . a repulsive
notion, associated with imperialism, dollar diplomacy, and other aspects of our behavior
we had abandoned and was both strange and somewhat abhorrent.7 After receiving one of his first briefings on occupation
plans for Japan, President Truman remarked that civil government was no job for
soldiers and that the War Department should begin to plan to turn occupation
responsibilities over to the State Department as soon as possible.8 Adding to concerns about military despotism was the
persistent ambivalence of Americans with the United States role as an
empire and the Armys role as guardians of this empire,9
which governance functions essentially represent.

Civilian leaders
supported the Armys leadership over governance operations largely because of a lack
of alternatives. Political leaders realized that the Army was the only agency capable of
accomplishing reconstruction in the midst of and aftermath of combat. While some World War
II leaders expressed concern that civilians could lose the postwar world by
default (by failing to offer a comprehensive plan to rival that of the
Armys), President Roosevelt recognized that only the Army would be able to
deliver prompt results. Even the Secretary of State, James Byrnes,
acknowledged that the State Department did not have the capacity to run an occupation. He
compromised by arguing that the State Department would have oversight over policy, with
the War Department responsible for the execution of the occupation.10 During the Vietnam War, there

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was an acceptance by the Johnson
Administration that civil agencies were not up to the task of overseeing pacification;
thus the Civil Operations for Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program was
created within the US Military Assistance Command.

Similar concerns
about military control over governance seem to have influenced decisions in Operation
Iraqi Freedom, contributing to the decision to avoid ceding full operational control of
governance functions to US Central Command (CENTCOM). The Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), created before the start of hostilities in February 2003,
was charged with administering the country, providing humanitarian aid, and rebuilding
damaged infrastructure. ORHAs relationship to CENTCOM seemed to create dual
authorities, with ORHA technically under CENTCOMs operational control, but with
CENTCOM controlling critical resources (such as security), and ORHA itself charged with
creating the conditions for Iraqi self-rule. This early organization illustrated the
ambivalence of civilian leaders about ceding too much control to the military.
Furthermore, the original appointment of a retired Army general, Jay Garner, to head ORHA
exemplified the sort of uncertainty plaguing US leaders over who should control governance
tasks. A retired general officer offered the benefits of previous Army experience, but
without the perceived political ramifications of appointing an active-duty officer to head
such a political task.

These concerns
seemed to only increase with the replacement of Garner by a stronger civilian leader, L.
Paul Bremer, to oversee the newly
created Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). While the appointment of Bremer seemed to
reflect an effort to improve unity of command in the theater, with Bremer reporting
directly to the Secretary of Defense, the CPA remains dependent on CENTCOM for many of the
resources needed by the CPA to accomplish its mission. The specific sets of activities
that fall under CENTCOMs purview and the CPAs purview are being worked out in
the theater, and although the situation seems to be improving, there are still disconnects
between the two organizations. One example: the CPA lacks the capability to secure areas,
and without security, reconstruction in unstable pockets of the country cannot begin.
Joint Task Force 7, under CENTCOMs command, retains responsibility for security,
creating a bureaucratic separation between two inextricably linked tasks. The hundreds of
CPA administrators control very few resources on the ground. The CENTCOM theater commander
almost literally holds all the keys (Army convoys accompany top officials), and CPA
personnel remain dependent upon the Army for accomplishing many of their day-to-day
activities. CENTCOM has a great deal of control on the ground, without the necessary
authorities, while CPA has more control on paper than it does in reality.11

These are precisely
the kinds of problems and constraints that hampered civil agencies in past wars and led to
the decision by US leaders to cede control over governance to the Army. Indeed, with the
appointment of Bremer,

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US civilian and
military leaders failed to appreciate the key difference in Germany at the end of World
War II between General Lucius Clay and High Commissioner John McCloy. It was General Clay,
serving as theater commander and military governor, who oversaw the toughest
political and economic reconstruction tasks, including intensive denazification and
demilitarization efforts as well as banking and monetary reform. The civilian leader,
John McCloy, arrived in 1949, well after stability had been achieved. In Iraq today, the
Army with appropriate political directionis the only organization that is
capable of asserting the countrywide reach necessary for effective reconstruction to take
root and evolve.

Reluctant
Military Governors

The Army has never
relished the tasks associated with governance. Army leaders have had recurring concerns
about the dilution of resources away from Army combat missions. During the Mexican War,
Secretary of War William Marcy warned his commanding generals that tasks related to civil
administration would be the least pleasant part of their duties.12 During and after the Civil War, the Armys power
during reconstruction made General Ulysses S. Grant uncomfortable, and Union generals were
reluctant to divert any of their forces to meet the requirements of the military
governors: Fighting generals believed that military objectives should come first:
win the war and then worry about the political ramifications later.13 During World War II, General Eisenhower was reportedly
eager to hand duties over to civilian administrators as quickly as possible,14
though in fact this transfer did not occur until political and economic reconstruction was
well under way.

Despite these kinds
of reservations, the Army often has sought control over governance operations due to
military necessity and the desire to preserve unity of command. Army commanders have
recognized that operational control over all activities in the theater was critical for
maintaining stability and for protecting US forces during the course of the war. During
World War II, competition between the Army and civilian planning efforts emerged less
because of the Armys desire to lead governance operations and more because of the
Armys determination to rise above the confusion of civilian planning and preserve
unity of command. Frustrating coordination problems had arisen in North Africa in the
summer of 1942, and General Eisenhower was determined to avoid a situation in which
conflicting civilian and military authority over the same territory existed.15

Furthermore, in
practice, combat and reconstruction virtually always occurred in tandem, with the defeat
of the enemy forces in rear areas requiring a consolidation of the political situation
while remaining troops pushed ahead. In Germany during World War II, US troops overtook
towns in rear areas and began to restore order and stability even as the advance into
Germany continued. During the Korean War in 1950, the Army actively resisted efforts by
the State De-

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partment and the
United Nations to retain control over governance tasks, not because the Army was eager to
assume reconstruction tasks, but because the commanding general insisted upon unity of
command.16

The situation in
Iraq today reinforces this link between combat and reconstructionnot as separate
phases of the war, but as interrelated components. Reconstruction efforts are under way,
but American troops remain targets of almost daily attacks by Iraqi irregulars. Indeed,
CENTCOMs regular briefings from Baghdad repeatedly refer to the intermixing of
maneuver forces that are continuing to clear potentially hostile pockets while conducting
assessments and aiding reconstruction efforts. Combat in Iraq, albeit at a different level
of intensity, continues at this writing in late July 2003, and there will be no clear
separation between combat and reconstruction until a new Iraqi governing body is elected
and reasonably stable.

Lessons for
the Future

History offers some
lessons for the contemporary situation in Iraq. First, although the ongoing problems in
Iraq reflect, to some degree, the inevitable fog of war, most observers agree
that planning for the reconstruction phase was not as advanced as the planning undertaken
by CENTCOM for the first three phases of the war. CENTCOM had responsibility for planning
four phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom: setting the conditions for war, the air campaign,
major combat operations (the ground offensive), and postwar stability operations. However,
this temporal approach to war planning has permitted civilian and military planners to
allow CENTCOM to pay less attention to the final phase of the war.17 The
organizational arrangements that emerged on the ground following the main combat
operations reflected an eagerness to delegate perceived postwar duties.

An acceptance of
political and economic reconstruction as an integral part of war would facilitate
decisions about appropriate command arrangements, decisions that have been so difficult
and incendiary in Iraq. History suggests that leadership over reconstruction efforts
should run through US military channels and that the military should have direct
responsibility for implementation. Unity of command should prevail. This in turn suggests
that the conventional wisdom of allowing greater civil control is wrong and that the
tendency to bring in civilian and international organizations too quickly should be
carefully considered. Of course, appropriate resources need to be given to the military to
allow it to do the job.

Until the opposing
regime is fully dismantled, the war is not over, and the Army should remain in control of
all governance activities. A formal acceptance of this link between governance operations
and war could offset some of the political pressures faced by US leaders as they try to
manage international pressure to be inclusive. Relying primarily on civilian international
organizations for conducting humanitarian relief activities, as the White House announced
in May,18 could prove to be disastrous for the
accomplishment of final American war aims. Con-

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sider, for example,
the current morass related to the failure of the international coalition to rebuild the
ring road in Afghanistan.19 Policy can and should be made by
political leaders in Washington, but implementation falls squarely within the US
militarys mandate.

An acceptance of
governance operations as a key component of war also suggests that military planners will
need to rethink those tasks that have traditionally formed the core of the Army
profession.20 Indeed, governance operations clash with
traditional notions of the military profession. Samuel Huntingtons
classic work on the subject, The Soldier and the State, argued that the
management of violence sets the military profession apart from others.21
This view of the profession has shaped military planning and training. Governance
operations do not explicitly involve the management of violence and require
the military to engage in activities that are essentially civilian in nature, such as
rebuilding the civic infrastructure, restoring educational systems, and planning for new
elections. Similarities with civilian life set governance operations apart from the
military professions traditional view of itself.

Furthermore, Army
doctrine emphasizes the defeat of an enemys combat forcesnot the concomitant
replacement of an opposing states political leadership, which is virtually always
required to consolidate victory. Despite the considerable influence of Carl von Clausewitz
on the Army, governance activities reside in the gray area of Clausewitzs
distinction between preparations for war and war proper.
Clausewitz does not directly address the operational steps that military forces need to
take to consolidate victory during and following combat. Clausewitz focuses principally on
the why of war, since wars are fought for political reasons. Yet the
how behind this linkage is equally important: governance operations are the
operational link needed to consolidate a states final political aims in war. One
challenge today is to recruit and train soldiers in a manner that makes clear that
governance missions are a key part of the job they are signing up for. By explicitly
accepting governance operations as a part of war, military and civilian leaders can help
to offset the kind of disillusionment being voiced by young US soldiers throughout Iraq as
they wonder about their ongoing purpose in the theater.22

A rethinking of the
role of governance operations will require a reconsideration of accepted Army definitions
and doctrines. Existing doctrine and the concepts that shape Army combat service support,
counterinsurgency operations, special operations, and civil affairs missions may need to
be modified. While many outsiders criticized the Army for the decision to close its
Peacekeeping Institute at the US Army War College (a decision that has now been put on
hold), recreating it in its previous form should give the Army leadership pause. A real
step toward advancing strategic and operational thinking about governance operations would
be to revive the institute under another name, with a mission that addresses the strategic
challenge of integrating various elements of war, from combat to governance, with an
emphasis on the planning, organization, and

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training issues
associated with military leadership over governance tasks in war. Furthermore,
consideration should be given to how governance operations should be approached at the US
Army Training and Doctrine Command and at US Joint Forces Command.

Acceptance of
governance operations as an integral part of war also could offer US military and
political leaders a stronger and more sensible rationale for limiting US military
involvement in other kinds of operations. An acceptance of the reconstruction requirements
that are inevitably a part of war would provide political and military leaders with a
basis for distinguishing between those activities that are clearly a part of war and those
that are notthus providing a basis for rejecting US military involvement in the
myriad of other missions, not related to war. This is not to say such missions should be
rejected out of hand. Clearly, such decisions are for political leaders to make.

Finally, US military
planners need to consider how combat operations and governance operations should
explicitly inform each other, since they are part of the same campaign. As noted earlier,
governance operations have always occurred in tandem with combat operations. In Iraq,
stabilization measures were occurring in the defeated cities of Umm Qasr, Basr, and
An Nasiriyah as the Armys 3d Infantry Division pressed on toward Baghdad. Just
as joint operations are about achieving a synergy among the units of different services to
accomplish the objective at hand, so should thinking shift about the relationship between
combat and governance. These different elements of war should be viewed synergistically.
Accepting this interrelationship will have specific ramifications for the combat phases of
war and for how wars are planned, fought, and ultimately won.

2. I use the term
governance operations here to avoid the various connotations associated with existing
terms, which refer to a very wide range of different activities, some of which are not
relevant to war itself. This point will be expanded upon in this article.

3. In the 3 October
2000 debate with presidential candidate Al Gore, Bush warned against the problem of
extending US troops all around the world in nation-building missions. Candidate Bush
repeated this theme in several of his campaign speeches through the fall of 2000.

5. These cases include: (1) the Mexican
War; (2) Reconstruction; (3-5) the Spanish-American War (i.e. the Philippines, Cuba, and
Puerto Rico); (6) the Rhineland following World War I; (7-10) World War II
(i.e. Germany, Italy, Japan, and Korea); (11) Korea in 1950; (12) the Dominican
Republic in 1965; (13) Grenada; (14) Panama in 1989. There were also the early cases of
the Indian wars, in which the Army administered territories throughout the West. See Henry
Putney Beers, The Western Military Frontier 1815-1846 (Philadelphia: Univ. of
Pennsylvania, 1935); and Fairfax Downey, Indian Wars of the U.S. Army 1776-1865
(New York: Doubleday, 1963).

7. See Earl F.
Ziemke, Improvising Stability and Change in Postwar Germany, in Robert Wolfe,
ed. Americans as Proconsuls: United States Military Government in Germany and Japan,
1944-1952 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1984), p. 59. See also Henry L.
Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active Service in Peace and War (New York: Harper
and Brothers, 1947), p. 556.

14. General Lucius
Clay wrote that he and Eisenhower had intended to build an organization that could
be transferred bodily to a civil branch of government. Lucius D. Clay, Decision
in Germany (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1950), p. 53. Note also that
after the opening of the Armys first school of military government in 1942, Army
leaders recognized that although it was the sole agency capable of initiating the
reconstruction process, civilian agencies would eventually help too. See Memo,
Wickersham, Comdt, SMG, for PMG, 17 June 1942, PMGO files, 321.19, MG, original citation
in Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors,
United States Army in World War II Series (Washington: Center of Military History, 1964),
p. 12.

15. The Army
believed this was in contrast to the British system in which civil affairs operations were
closely guided by political authorities in London. See Coles and Weinberg, p. 162. See
also Msg, Marshall to Eisenhower, 8 May 43, OPD Msg files, CM-OUT 3586, original citation
in Coles and Weinberg, p. 169.

16. Eighth Army had
responsibility for all civil assistance activities in Korea, and MacArthur gave Lieutenant
General Walton Walker (Commander of Eighth Army) complete and overall responsibility
for the provision of necessary supplies and equipment to prevent disease, starvation, and
unrest among the civilian population in Korea. See CINCFE Directive to CG Eighth
Army, Korea, 17 Oct 1950, reprinted in Darwin C. Stolzenbach and Henry A. Kissinger, Civil
Affairs in Korea 1950-1951, Working Paper (Chevy Chase, Md.: Johns Hopkins University,
Operations Research Office, August 1952), p. 67. There are other documents in
this collection which describe the tension between the Army, the United Nations, and
the State Department. It is also interesting to note that the Department of the Army
actually drew up plans for the occupation of North Korea, anticipating the need
for military government there. For a discussion of the occupation plan, see, RAD W 93721,
DA to CINCFE 10 October 1950, cited by James F. Schnabel, Policy and Direction: The
First Year, United States Army in the Korean War, Office of the Chief of Military
History, US Army (Washington: GPO, 1972), pp. 219-20.

17. Although CENTCOM
reportedly did some planning for the reconstruction phase of the war in a plan called
Eclipse II, some well-placed observers acknowledge that much less attention was paid to
this phase of the operation than the previous three. As an aside, it is interesting to
note that Eclipse was the name given to one of the early plans that focused on the
reconstruction of Germany after World War II.

18. See press
release, President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended,
remarks by the President from USS Abraham Lincoln, at sea off the coast of San
Diego, Calif., 1 May 2002,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/iraq/20030501-15.html.

19. Traditionally,
Afghanistans unifying transportation artery has been the road connecting Kabul in
the east to Herat in the west. This is the key link in Afghanistans ring
road, which also connects its northern provinces with the capital. The
reconstruction of this road was seen as an important step demonstrating the US commitment
to reconstruct Afghanistan. It was to be done in conjunction with Japan and Saudi Arabia,
but progress has been extremely slow. See White House, Office of the Press Secretary,
Joint Statement on Road Construction in Afghanistan by the President of the United
States, the Prime Minister of Japan, and the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, 12
September 2002. See also Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service, U.S. Honoring
Pledge to Help Rebuild Afghanistan, 27 February 2003,
www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/n02272003_200302278.html.

20. Excellent work
is being done on this by Don Snider. See Don Snider, Gayle L. Watkins, and Lloyd J.
Matthews, eds., The Future of the Army Profession (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002).

21. Huntington
described a military specialist as an officer who is peculiarly expert at directing
the application of violence under certain prescribed conditions. Samuel Huntington, The
Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (2d. ed.;
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1985), p. 12.

22. There have been
many articles about the frustrations of US soldiers. See, for example, Williams and
Chandrasekaran. See also John Hendren, For U.S. Soldiers in Iraq, Long Haul Grows
Longer, Los Angeles Times, 16 July 2003, p. A1; and Ann Scott Tyson,
Troop Morale in Iraq Hits Rock Bottom, Christian Science
Monitor, 7 July 2003.

Nadia Schadlow is a senior
program officer in the International Security and Foreign Policy Program of the Smith
Richardson Foundation in Westport, Connecticut. She previously served for six years in the
Office of the Secretary of Defense. She is a graduate of Cornell University, holds an M.A.
from the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins
University, and is now a Ph.D. candidate in the Strategic Studies Program at SAIS. Her
dissertation focuses on the Armys experiences in the conduct of military government.